


Games Afoot

by rageprufrock



Category: House M.D.
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-09
Updated: 2010-01-09
Packaged: 2017-10-06 01:11:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/48067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rageprufrock/pseuds/rageprufrock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A man does what he must.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Games Afoot

It starts when House spends a solid forty minutes looking for his Xbox, he sees the Post-It note on the back of Wilson's DVD player saying: CONSIDER THIS YOUR COMEUPPANCE.

House stares at it for a long time before he says, "Oh, no he didn't."

*

 

It turns out he did, and when House stalks into Princeton Plainsboro the next morning, it's straight to Wilson's office. His dramatic entrance and plan to bludgeon Wilson into giving him back his gaming system suffers a hitch in that Wilson's not there—House knows because he might have broken in through the balcony door.

He thumps around the hospital snarling and everybody—with the exception of the oncology nurses, who all seem to smile at him—gives him a wide berth.

Eventually, he finds Wilson in with his most favorite terminal cancer kids, because there's no masochism like forming relationships with kids who are dying, House thinks in irritation.

The tearjerkers of the week are a redheaded boy reading a battered copy of Martin the Warrior, a blond girl with stringy hair and sallow skin curled, sleeping, around a bunny with its stuffing falling out, and a tiny Latino girl with huge dark eyes. Wilson's sitting Indian style behind her as he explains something about chemo, his shiny, French leather shoes glinting in the overhead light as he braids her wild locks and ties it off with a bright red scrunchy.

"Do you have any questions?" he asks her gently, letting the braid fall midway down her back.

She turns to face him seriously and puts her hands on her hips matter-of-factly as she asks, "Where'd you learn how to braid hair?"

"I got a book last year for Hannakah," Wilson says wryly and House remembers with a smile the Macramé for Dummies set he'd sent via hospital courier. He attached a card that read: HAPPY JEW CHRISTMAS.

For New Year's, Wilson hung up a little braided effigy of him in oncology—complete with dollhouse cane.

She touches the braid and smiles sweetly. "Does it look pretty?" she asks.

"It looks very nice," Wilson laughs, and strokes the crown of her head as he unfolds himself to stand up again. "Remember—if you any other questions—"

"Ask the nurses or ask the nurses to ask you," she says by rote, grinning.

"Good girl," Wilson says approvingly, and turns toward the door, where his melancholy smile shifts instantly to panic when he spies House—but only for a moment before he smirks, and his face morphs into one of supreme smarmy self-satisfaction.

House scowls, but waits until Wilson has closed the door to the abandoned office-cum-playroom before he says, voice dripping with fraternal concern, "You know, they rape you extra hard in prison for stealing from cripples."

"I'll take my chances," Wilson says dryly.

"Just keep in mind that the same reasons all those women find you irresistible will make you the hottest trade in cellblock D."

"I've always wanted to be popular," Wilson tells him earnestly, pushing into his office and making a beeline for the phone, checking his voicemails before shuffling through the interoffice mail, a distracted frown on his face.

"Give me back my Xbox," House demands, knowing he sounds petulant.

Wilson rolls his eyes and ignores him, so House plows onward:

"I've had a very rough year. My ex-girlfriend won't make an honest man out of me; one of my serfs had the audacity to go and become deathly ill; and—surprise surprise!—still a cripple."

"Well, I'd feel bad for you if I didn't know that you'd be the first one to trade me for cigarettes in jail," Wilson says easily, and starts flipping through one of four billion files on his desk. It's only Monday, and the piles will be higher by the end of the week.

"You know I've got three highly trained doctor slaves just next door and all of them know how to break into houses," House points out. "Foreman might be backwards but he's still black and he can totally supervise."

Wilson's pager goes off and he says, "Go forth, break and enter—you're not going to find it."

He's got that smile on his face that House knows means he's going to lose this round.

"You thieving slut!" House calls down the hallway after Wilson's retreating back, shaking his cane as Wilson turns—throwing open his arms in mock apology and smirks as he continues backwards down the hall.

*

 

When a thorough tossing of Wilson's lock-picked office turns up nothing, House briefly considers and then dismisses as pointless messing up Wilson's desk.

Firstly, Wilson would never notice, and secondly, even if he did, he'd just tell Cuddy who sides with Wilson all the time anyway—probably because she wants to carry his little Jewish doctor babies.

House can think of more terrible things than Cuddy and Wilson breeding, but it's hard.

There's also the point that Wilson would probably want House to be the crotchety uncle and Cuddy would want a restraining order, and the ensuing theatrics and recrimination and Wilson's feeble attempts to balance between House and Cuddy would supercede even Sonny and Jason on GH for melodrama.

And anyway, House isn't good at sharing, and apparently, this fatherhood business takes time.

Time better spent watching America's Next Top Model with House over Thai food.

Later that day, when his shamefaced trio of fellows report that breaking into Wilson's apartment yielded no precious, Microsoft gaming systems, he banishes them to do his clinic duty and play Spider Solitaire until he comes up with a better idea.

It takes him two hours and sixty-four losses to realize Wilson gave it to his battalion of battle-axe nurses. House has never felt so defeated in his life.

"That's just wrong," House growls.

Wilson dismisses it with a wave of his hand, automatically paying for his lunch as well as House's usual salad-over-his-steak. "A man does what he must."

*

 

Over the course of the next three months House sabotages all of Wilson's attempts to date, which actually seems to make him happier, stuffs porn into Wilson's patient files, forwards dozens and dozens of pieces of Disney erotica, and keeps breaking into Wilson's new apartment, if only on principle—but to no avail.

"I could report you to the police," House threatens.

"I could report you to so much more than just the police," Wilson rejoins.

During the fourth month, the new play lounge opens in oncology, and House ignores it for almost a week until he passes by to see small, bald children having upright seizures, arms flailing and stomping as horrible, horrible techno music pumps faintly from the closed door—

House limps as quickly as he can to the glass-walled enclosure, and when he gets there he sees his Xbox and two Dance Dance Revolution pads and a dozen kids and Wilson, sitting in a corner doing backlog paperwork and smirking at him, mouthing: GOTCHA.

That afternoon, House goes to Wilson's apartment and burns all of his underpants before stuffing his underwear drawer full of plus-sized women's lingerie.


End file.
